Stenograma dezbaterilor

Miercuri, 13 februarie 2019 - Strasbourg

9.1. Acordul de liber schimb între UE și Singapore (A8-0053/2019 - David Martin)

Mündliche Erklärungen zur Abstimmung

  Jude Kirton-Darling (S&D). – Mr President, I abstained today on the EU—Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA) as I did at committee stage. While I recognise the strategic importance of our relationship with Singapore and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, and concerns about the liberalisation of our public services have been lessened thanks to the use of a positive list, this is a missed opportunity on labour rights.

Trade agreements are a key means of setting the rules of the globalisation game and the Singapore FTA sets that bar too low. Even at the eleventh hour, Singapore hasn’t fully committed to ratifying the core International Labour Organisation Conventions, providing the most basic rights. Meanwhile, labour-rights activists in Singapore, like Jolovan Wham, face tough justice fighting for rights for the most vulnerable workers, migrant workers. Today I stand with him, and I call for substantive change, not more rhetoric.

  Jiří Pospíšil (PPE). – Pane předsedající, já jsem naopak tuto dohodu podpořil a jsem velmi rád, že jsme schválili další dohodu o volném obchodu s další zemí. Naší filozofií, filozofií EU v mezinárodním obchodu musí být principy liberalismu, principy volného obchodu, nikoliv protekcionismus. Já jsem přesvědčen, že brzo uvidíme, jaký blahodárný důsledek tato dohoda bude mít na obchodní vztahy mezi EU a Singapurem. Až za pár let budeme tuto dohodu vyhodnocovat, tak uvidíme – a to si dovolím to takto tvrdit – zvýšení obchodu a investic mezi EU a Singapurem. Bude to mít podobný dopad, jako když jsme nedávno vyhodnocovali dohodu o volném obchodu s Jižní Koreou, která také přispěla k tomu, že se obchod mezi EU a Jižní Koreou zněkolikanásobil. Takže to vítám a prosím, buďme v tom odvážnější, přijměme takovéto dohody i s ostatními našimi obchodními partnery.

  Daniel Hannan (ECR). – Mr President, it was almost exactly 200 years ago that an erratic and romantic British colonial officer called Sir Stamford Raffles landed in what’s now Singapore. Its population then was 120 Malays and 30 Chinese. It had zero resources except its natural harbour.

Now there are 5.6 million Singaporeans enjoying the eighth highest per capita GDP in the world. How did they manage that? This is a place with zero resources. They have to import their food, their drinking water, their electricity. What was the magic ingredient that transformed those swampy mangrove trees into the gleaming skyscrapers that we see today? Simply this: unilateral free trade. Singaporeans invited the traffic and commerce of the world unconditionally, without waiting for reciprocity, and they especially did so after 1965, following an acrimonious split with their largest neighbour. It was the moment, as Lee Kuan Yew was to put it, when they plugged into the global economic grid. And that is the opportunity for Britain or any other country in the world: simply remove the obstacles between businesses and their customers.